Photo by Gabrielle Audu on Unsplash
If socialism is superior… why don’t socialists simply make a socialist company and show to the world how much better it is compared to a capitalist company?
Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara has an answer: They have.
The concept of a socialist company may seem contradictory to those mindful of the classic definition of socialism, in which the means of production is no longer in private hands. You know, Power to the People, except in more structural ways than implied in the clenched fisted slogan.
Michael stretches a point to include communes, kibbutzim, Amish communities, and others.
Thankfully, he doesn’t get into the hippie communes known to us in my long, long ago youth.
Nor does he mention the earliest Christian communities, organized in their own form of shared possessions.
Key concept, volunteerism:
Socialists can and have established socialist companies; even, for a time, successfully. The key is for people to adhere to the basic principle of voluntary consent, and renounce the use of political power–governmental force and coercion–to impose their socialist beliefs on everyone by law.
However, Michael sees voluntary socialism as universally doomed:
This is why socialism, in all of its political manifestations, always leads to tyranny. It has to, because it faces an implacable force—human nature. People simply want to live for themselves.
I dunno. I kind of like living in a system of loosely regulated capitalism. But I confess I also like government ownership of fire departments, public works, and ICBMs.
My doctor (bless her heart) and my wife conspire these days to get me to take walks. I like strolling on sidewalks owned by local government. When I drive around here in Missouri, it’s on state owned highways.
On those rare occasions when I am in contact with individual police officers, I make it a point to thank them for their community service, working as they do for a government owned (which is to say socialist) enterprise.
When Elon Musk toyed with the idea of cutting off internet access to all of Ukraine, I especially appreciated that we never got around to privatizing ownership of nuclear weapons.
2 thoughts on “Libertarians, Communes, Early Christianity, and Socialist Sidewalks”
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one of my fave places on earth are public libraries, for many reasons, including the fact that they’re examples of how, just like you postulate here, socialism can be great in the right setting. socialized medicine would be great too…
da-AL, you’ve got my vote!
Libertarians I have known personally have been wildly idealistic about the ideology.
Sadly, many others have adopted definitions distorted by Republican partisans to exaggerate what they oppose.
I think of Harry Truman in 1952:
Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years.
Socialism is what they called public power.
Socialism is what they called Social Security.
Socialism is what they called farm price supports.
Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance.
Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations.
Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.